UK Nature and Environment

I first encountered coastal wildflowers when I was 11. I was visiting my grandmother’s friend in Devon and a lady said: “Here, dear,” and dug up a clump of Warren crocuses – a rare plant that, at the time, was only thought to grow in the seaside resort of Dawlish Warren. She gave them to me to grow in my garden at home. But of course they didn’t grow away from the sea.

That was when I realised there was something special about coastal wildflowers. They fascinate me because, as well as being beautiful flowers, they often grow in tough locations. Take the rock sea-spurrey: a delicate little plant that appears to grow out of solid rock, such as a crevice in a cliff base. It can put up with being splashed with sea spray and baked by the summer sun. And yet it seems to thrive in that difficult, harsh environment.

There’s even one plant – the slender centaury – that lives on a landslip, which is a dangerous place to live. The only place you can find it is on the cliffs of Dorset on the Jurassic Coast, which are always falling into the sea. Yet somehow it manages to survive.